One More Damn Thing to Worry About: Radioactive Wild Boars

Thanks to this morning's Boston Globe, we have a new Lead Story in our rapidly expanding file entitled, If It Ain't One Damn Thing, It's Another. This one, I assure you, goes to the top of the pile and stays there.

Hundreds of toxic wild boars have been roaming across northern Japan, where the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant six years ago forced thousands of residents to desert their homes, pets, and livestock. Some animals, like cattle, were left to rot in their pens. As Japan prepares to lift some evacuation orders on four towns within the more than 12-mile exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant this month, officials are struggling to clear out the contaminated boars. Wild boar meat is a delicacy in northern Japan, but animals slaughtered since the disaster are too contaminated to eat. According to tests conducted by the Japanese government, some of the boars have shown levels of radioactive element cesium-137 that are 300 times higher than safety standards.

Holy mother of god.

Officials have also expressed concern that returning residents may be attacked by the animals, some of which have settled comfortably in abandoned homes and have reportedly lost their shyness to humans.

It is clear that the only reporter with the chops to cover this latest sign of the impending apocalypse is stalwart American newshound Raymond Burr. By the way, all commentary on the current American political scene containing the phrases, "radioactive bores," and "radioactive boors" is welcome in the snug below.